|
| New essay, Godly Men, posted on Prinshopman.com. Comments are more than welcome and can be left on this blog entry.
| | |
| Luke 20:27-38Then some
Sadducees stepped forward – a group of Jews who say there is no
resurrection after death. They posed this question: "Teacher, Moses
gave us a law that if a man dies, leaving a wife but no children, his
brother should marry the widow and have a child who will be the
brother's heir. Well, there were seven brothers. The oldest married and
then died without children. His brother married the widow, but he also
died. Still no children. And so it went, one after the other, until
each of the seven had married her and died, leaving no children.
Finally, the woman died, too. So tell us, whose wife will she be in the
resurrection? For all seven were married to her!"Jesus replied,
"Marriage is for people here on earth. But that is not the way it will
be in the age to come. For those worthy of being raised from the dead
won't be married then. And they will never die again. In these respects
they are like angels. They are children of God raised up to new life.
But now, as to whether thedead will be raised – even Moses proved this
when he wrote about the burning bush. Long after Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob had died, he referred to the Lord as 'the God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' So he is the God of the living, not
the dead. They are all alive to him."
New Living Translation Years
ago this passage of scripture was more than difficult for me to accept.
I guess you could say I had the same question as the Sadducess in my
heart, however, unlike them I was not interested in debating the
existence of the resurrection. I was concerned with the question they
used to mask there intentions, the specifics regarding marriage and
death. In the same way we try to own material things we also try to own
our relationships. It seems that in our relationships here on
earth we can easily loose our focus on God because of an intense focus
on each other. We order our lives to live strictly on behalf of a
significant other here on earth, and put God down as a close second (or
a distant 4th, 5th or worse). In my particular case, the language was
the most evident sign of my problem. I used phrases such as "my
(Person's Name)" constantly in speech about my significant other. This
language is much different from that of "my wife", or "my father", or
"my mother", etc. The language more closely represented phrases like
"my car", or "my house", possessive language rather than title based
like wife, mother, or father. Though it says in the Scriptures "I am my
beloved's and my beloved is mine" (Song of Solomon 6:3 NASB). I do not
believe the Scriptures hold true to the idea of one owning the other.
When woman was created she was described by the scriptures in Genesis
2:18 as "a helper suitable for him" (NIV), "a companion" (NLT), "an
help meet" (KJV). If God were looking to give Adam something to own, in
this situation God would have given him a shovel. | | |
| New essay, Blessed
Assurance, posted on Prinshopman.com.
Comments are more than welcome and can be left on this blog
entry. | | |
| New essay, Morality issues in Interpersonal Deception Theory, posted on Prinshopman.com. Comments are more than welcome and can be left on this blog entry. | | |
| Galations 5:22 - 23But the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no
law.
New American Standard What is
fruit? An apple is a fruit. It is produced by an apple tree
and used by humans for nutrition. It is also the apples trees method of
producing more apple tress. In the case of Galations 5 fruit is
used in a similar sense. It is a product of the Spirit (part of
the trinity, note the capitalization) in us. Note that you do to
get something, it is a result, not a cause. Hense, you do not
love to get the Spirit, the Spirit enables you to love. When we live by
the Spirit (follow what the Spirit tells you to do) then the spirit
gives you the fruit of the spirit. We can not produce this fruit
on our own; if so, it would be called the fruit of men, and it is not. Also
note that the fruit of the Spirit is one gift with 9 qualities, not 9
seperate gifts. Look at the text, you have the word fruit which
is singular and the word is that is used with a single subject.
So do not say I have the fruit of self-control, but need to work on the
fruit of kindess. You do not produce the fruit, the Sprit
does. So if you want love, or joy or anyother quality of the
fruit of the Spirit it can only come from one person, the Spirit.
On our own non of the qualities can be acheived, but with the help of
the Spirit all are given together. | | |
|
